What are our values? – Federal Alliance of European Federalists

By creating a European Federation, the FAEF aims to protect freedom, order, security, solidarity, happiness, justice, defence against enemies, protection of the environment, as well as acceptance and tolerance of the diversity of cultures, beliefs, lifestyles and languages of all those who live and will live in the territory under the jurisdiction of the Federation.

This is our 'Constitution'

The present EU’s intergovernmental administrative system has reached the end of its political life cycle. A federal Europa will be stronger.

Preambule

Europe, 2018. After decades of confidence and trust in the process of unification of the European countries and the unquestionable success of 70 years of peace and prosperity in the majority of our countries, the conjuncture of a deep and long economic crisis and political stagnation created, among the European disillusioned peoples, the space for the raise - once again - of nationalism and populism.
For the first time since decades, the survival of the European Union and its achievements has become uncertain and the hope to have in future a more united and strong Europe is threatened at its real basis.
For the first time since decades, the survival of the European Union and its achievements has become uncertain and the hope to have in future a more united and strong Europe is threatened at its real basis.
Some weak attempts to improve the EU were done (European Convention in 2004, Treaty of Lisbon in 2009) but none of them tried to overcome the real issue that made impossible the creation of a real federal Europe: the intergovernmental system that is nothing but a continuous accumulation of conflicting national interests.
We recognize that, failed the approach from the above in the past when the trust and confidence in the EU was very high, today the only way to overcome this situation is to trigger a significative change, a 'quantum leap', to start a bottom-up process, involving all the federalists movements and organisations and all the grassroots that are in favour of a more democratic, accountable and united Europe, to launch a Federal Constitution for Europe, overcoming the actual treaties and the intergovernmental system, and creating the United States of Europe.
In 1787 the 13 North American colonies that acquired their independence from the United Kingdom only a few years before, after many attempts to form a workable Confederation, were finally facing a deep crisis (similar to the one that the actual EU is facing nowadays). Trying to prevent the collapse, a Convention was gathered in Philadelphia, and the representatives of the 13 states, which had the mandate to reform the previous treaties, they decided to disobey the mandates received from their respective governments by provoking a ‘quantum leap' and wrote the draft of a Federal Constitution. In September 1787 this constitution was submitted to the American people with the intention of transforming the Confederation into a federal State based on a Constitution. The citizens ratified the Constitution and this was the born of the United States of America, the more successful federation in World's history. This historical key episode of "constructive disobedience" that has caused a radical change of discontinuity ('quantum leap') that brought to the creation of the USA must inspire the FAEF action strategy and the narrative to the EU citizens by adapting them to the actual ”historical conditions”: existence of the EU and the institutions, the upcoming EP elections, the diversity of the cultures of the 27 UE countries, the opportunities offered by today's technologies, etc.

1 - The purpose of FAEF

FAEF aims at ‘federating the federalists’ as a completely new approach contributing to the ultimate goal: creating a federal Europe from the ‘bottom-up’, based on a federal Constitution. This is not an easy task in view of the fact that all attempts to create a federal Europe have failed in the past. Furthermore, there is not much applause for the idea of an U.S.E. (United States of Europe), either from the point of view of society, or from the point of view of the political establishment. Our first task is: 'federate the federalists'. If the very many single, decentralized unitary federalist movements in Europe are not able, nor prepared to upgrade their organizational density, they will never be able to create a federal Europe.

2 - Establishing FAEF

We are therefore faced with the task of forcing an enormous breakthrough. A breakthrough that can only succeed if we can organize a huge number of Europeans aware citizens and activists. This requires a snowball effect, which, as always, starts with a small snowball. By creating a network of 13 – completely different - federalist movements in and around Milan on May 12th, 2018, we have made that little snowball already. The challenge now is to get this snowball rolling from the mountain, sticking to it as many as possible local/regional groups of federalist movements – in all European countries - to make the snowball bigger and bigger on the agenda of European federalization. We will have to join forces, at least one level higher than the present level of the hundreds of single, decentralized unitary federalist movements throughout the cities Europe’s network Europe. It is obvious that an organization that aims to federalize Europe should join forces with the various federal movements and become a federal organization.

The next step is to establish the FAEF as an association in Milan.

3 - What is a federal organization?

A federal organization is an organization that provides a vertical division of powers between a federal body and the participating organizations/movements. At the federal level, the common/shared interests of the participating organizations are represented (shared sovereignty). The individual interests of the participating organizations are represented by themselves (individual sovereignty) and the federation therefore has no involvement in this. The common interest is to create a federal Europe based on a ‘bottom-up’ federal Constitution.

4 - Critical success factors

We have already mentioned that we need to organize a huge number of European citizens and activists – through movements and associations - in order to be successful. The organizations play a crucial role in this respect. They must send out the message, mobilize all means of communication and win citizens over to the idea of federalization.

The second critical success factor is directly related to this: getting the message across. Our experience is that there is a lack of knowledge about federalism and that, therefore, this is not seen as a solution for the ailing European Union of today. Even many convinced federalists do not have sufficient basic knowledge of the essence of federalism. We cannot afford this. It is the task of the many thousands individual federalist members of the federalist movements within FAEF, to learn the basic principles of federalism and thereafter inform and teach the people of Europe about these essentials of European federalism.

This website provides a great deal of information on the federalization of Europe. This information is available free of charge, except for the special Course Federalizing Europe. Get more information.

Another task of FAEF is lobbying in the ‘political world’ with one voice: involve the political system – on the national level of the EU-Member States as well as on the level of the EU itself - to approve of the Constitution for the United States of Europe.